HELMUT  OEHRING

D É J A - V U  /  E N T E N D U

 

Helmut Oehring's Angelus Novus III (déjà-vu/entendu) forms the current cycle of works based on paintings by Paul Klee and texts by Walter Benjamin, together with the ensemble study Angelus Novus I, the instrumental-vocal collage mis en scène Angelus novus II, and the Vocalise of an inconsolable Angel for soprano, electric guitar and orchestra. The socio-political references in Oehring's compositions, which today range primarily between instrumental-vocal theatre and semi-staged concerts, seek to engage with current issues and real people from history and the present day in terms of content, aesthetics and practical artistry. In Angelus Novus III, the libretto and instrumental-vocal composition focus on key texts from Walter Benjamin's historical-philosophical essays, in particular the Ninth Thesis on the Philosophy of History about the ‘angel of history’ and its pictorial model, a series of drawings by Paul Klee with varying angel motifs.  Klee's paintings, like Benjamin's theses On the Concept of History, published posthumously in 1940, reflect ‘prophetically’ on the philosophical questions that became existential for him and countless other intellectuals and artists in the 1930s as they confronted fascism, the Nazi dictatorship, exile, World War II and the Shoah. These questions then shaped subsequent generations' reflections on a ‘dialectic of enlightenment’ (Adorno/Horkheimer) and appear like déjà vu in today's current context.